I was really talking about general computing, not industry specific applications or workstations. Since their “loosing the plot” has made them the most valuable company on the Planet, I suspect not having a presence in architecture and engineering market wouldn’t worry them too much. Which is a pity, because they have a stunning screen and tower configuration.
If the S/W vendors you allude are Intel based they may have to review that, Intel’s soup to nuts business model is faltering, but they’ve had one hell of a run since being on the verge of bankruptcy forty years ago. I guess they stopped being paranoid when Andy Gove retired.
What GPUs do they use, I guess Nvidia is now too busy filling AI datacentres to care about graphics? Their market cap is something to behold. Though, it’ll all end in tears when the “AI” bubble bursts* and the next BIG THING. comes along
bit of light reading for anybody in the mood (the first page is actually enough )
Sadly the current Mac Pro “tower” is not a patch on the old “cheesegrater” Mac tower - it only has two internal drive bays whereas my 2010-vintage Mac Pro has four - and two optical drive bays!
And with prices starting from £7,199 it’s a silly price as well, although undoubtedly very powerful.
With most of Apple’s range nowadays they expect you to use external storage drives, which is OK with Thunderbolt / USB3 connections, but nowhere near as neat as having everything internal.
I now use an M1 Mac Mini with just 8GB of RAM as my main photo & video editing machine, and it’s plenty powerful enough for the purpose, and cost me about £850. (In hindsight I should perhaps have gone for 16GB RAM, though 8 works.)
The 2010 Mac Pro I now use as a Big Fat Storage Box and general admin machine, though it’s still capable of a bit of Photoshopping when needed, which is pretty remarkable for a computer that’s 14 years old. It’s had a few upgrades in that time of course - 48GB of RAM, Radeon graphics card, a BluRay burner drive, and a USB 3 adapter.
Apparently the cheesegrater Mac Pro was discontinued because it used too much power to pass new EU efficiency regulations, which is a great shame. Of course making the drives external just passes the energy consumption buck to a separate box, which is daft if you think about it…
Regarding @Wozza’s point about engineering software, that probably has more to do with the software companies not wanting to support two different OSs, than anything Apple did. Though Apple themselves have opted out of a few software areas where they couldn’t compete (e.g. professional photo editing). Apple Aperture was actually a very good photo editor, but of course Adobe’s Photoshop and Lightroom stomped all over them in that market.
I’m not a fan of iOS as an OS… My missus has a MacBook and I refuse to help her with it when it plays up.
Saying that, Apple hardware is very stylish. I had one of the 2005 era Mac Mini and it was groundbreaking. Hard to believe it was 20 years ago. If they were cheaper, I’d love to buy one of these Mac Pro machines from 2013…
iOS is for the portable devices - iPhones and iPads - Mac OS on the desktop/laptop computers is a slightly different beast (though I’m sure Apple would like to make them converge).
I would respectfully venture to suggest that your reluctance to sort your OH’s Mac is perhaps based more on unfamiliarity than any real difficulty with the OS itself. It is “similar but different”, which can be disconcerting at first.
Back in the day I was “tech support” for a roomful of PCs (including a Windows NT server) which ran our photo sales operation at the Beaches resort in Turks & Caicos - and they were a set of piglets to deal with compared to the Macs that we switched to after we left Beaches and didn’t need to sell prints to the Great Unwashed any more.
I’ve been Mac-based ever since (2006-ish) and would not go back to Microdaft Weirdows.
Personal preference of course - whatever floats your boat (even you Linux fiends, I know we have a few in SF…)
The problem with Macs is that you can get similar performance in a Windows desktop for a lot less money.
MacBooks are being chased hard in terms of hardware designed and quality by Lenovo these days if you don’t mind you Western designed laptop that’s built in China actually having a Chinese brand.
True up to a point, but it’s difficult to make direct comparisons since the architectures are now so different, and it depends what you need the machine for. Price is not the only factor. A cheap Windows machine is still a cheap computer with cheap components whereas Apple have a reputation to maintain so reliability is pretty much a given. I’ve never had to take a Mac in for repair in almost 20 years.
PCs have the advantage that you can custom-build one with components of your choice to get the exact spec you want - so for things like gaming yes you are better off with a PC. But the boxes themselves are bigger and clunkier on the whole.
The Mac Mini however smokes most similar sized compact Windows boxes and can be had for £649 (excluding keyboard and screen).
MacBook portables with the M series chips are also pretty zippy for the money.
One plus with Macs is that because everything comes from Apple you have a one-stop shop for tech support and you eliminate the variables of graphics card X with motherboard Y, and dealing with device driver updates for third party bits.
Macs are also more power-efficient so better for the planet in that sense.
I don’t think internal bays are too important these days. An SSD just for the OS and paging would be fine with a thunderbolt RAID (or two)attached. I’ve an M1 iMac and an M2 MacBook, both very quick.
As for supporting two OSs (or CPU architectures), I’m not sure that’s the issue it once was. Many games seem to do it.
IMHO RAID is an invention of the devil, unless you know exactly what you are doing (which you no doubt do). But that’s another story.
I need more storage than most people for photos and videos. Using an external box means another power socket used up, another set of fans going, and an extra cable across the desk.
With my Mac Mini I have to do it that way now, but when the Mac pro tower was my main machine, it was all in one box and just needed one power socket (plus one for the monitor). I think using multiple external boxes is a clunky solution, that’s all.
And yes PC people I realise I could buy a big PC box with lots of drive bays, a perspex side panel and lots of LED illumination.
Why Chris? I remember when they arrived on the scene, big shock for big disk manufacturers. These little yokes are foolproof. I’ve had ones for years, mind you I haven’t had a failure or tried a hot swap yet. The latest versions have far more capacity.
A big advantage is I can hide it in the cave in case we’re burgled when we go off for weeks. The disadvantage a few years ago was it took me about a week when we came back to remember where I’d safely hidden it.
I have many treasured things that I’ve put in “safe places” and one day, I hope to find them all again.
I recently purchased a new 1/2” drive ratchet, small extension bar and a 13mm socket as mine had gone missing, only to find them in the Potting Shed in storage box with the various pairs of broken/blunt/rusty secateurs we’ve built up over the years.
I suspect I had a “That’ll do, I’ll put them away later…” moment.
)
It is “similar but different”, which can be disconcerting at first.
